Hi folks
I can't seem to see a thread on this, and thought I would start one.
Be good to post our fave churches, architecture wise, interesting facts, location etc..
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Hi folks
I can't seem to see a thread on this, and thought I would start one.
Be good to post our fave churches, architecture wise, interesting facts, location etc..
div>
![]()
Great idea MissI, we have an expert on the subject Jona76. Check out his website on Childwall Church.![]()
You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else.
Winston Churchill
canning.merseyworld.com/stphilip.htm
i have read alot about this church but never actually been to the site...
Is the garden still there?
pic courtesy of liverpool record office online archive.
Last edited by MissInformed; 12-30-2006 at 01:11 PM.
Quote:
The Reading Rooms, Garston: (not sure on the history)
This was an early cinema, so I've researched the history:
GARSTON PICTURE PALACE
2 Wellington Street, Garston, Liverpool 19
Opened (January?) 1910 (or September 1909)
The building was erected as a "Reading & Lecture Room" and was opened in 1861 "chiefly through the exertions of Hugh Gaskell Sutton", (who died in 1862), to quote from a plaque found at the premises.
From 1867 it was used as a church for the English Congregationalists, and later (1890s) it was also used as a monthly petty Sessions Court. (I read somewhere that Florence Maybrick made her first appearance in Court here, but not being an authority on that subject, I could be wrong). Penny Savings Bank (established in 1880) was open on Saturday evenings.
By 1900 to c1909 it was called Garston Reading Room, Garston Library.
As the Garston Reading and Lecture Room, a "Music, Singing, Dancing & Other Public Entertainments" Licence was granted to Walter Lunt. This was the same type of licence given to music halls.
The Music Licence was transferred from Walter Lunt to Roger Abel on 28 September 1909.
On 11 January 1910 a cinematograph licence was granted to Roger Abel, and the building was called the Wellington Picture Palace. The address was given as 11 Wellington Street, which was either a mistake or Mr Abel's home. The transfer of the music licence the previous September to Mr Abel indicates that the premises were probably showing films then. Mr Abel was the secretary for the Trustees of the Reading Room.
The cinema was also known as the Garston Picture Palace, and the Reading Room Picture Palace.
In 1913 the seating capacity was 338. The gallery was still closed to the public.
(The Garston Empire opened in June 1915, and showed films right from the start).
On the 31 May 1918 the cinema licenses were granted to both this and the Heald Street cinema only until the Annual Meeting of the Licensing Bench on 31 October 1918. The Borough Surveyor then reported that the Wellington Street premises were unsuitable, so this cinema was closed by official order. (The Heald Street cinema was allowed to continue on condition that the projection room was altered).
From November 1919 the Wellington Street building was licensed (as the Garston Citizen's Institute) for Music, Singing and Dancing, until the licence expired on 31 October 1921.
From 1921 to 1925 it was the Reading Room Men's Club, after which it was St Michael's Church Club, to 1938. From 1939 it became the Garston Boy's Club, which it still was in the 1970s.
It is now called the Garston Reading Room, and is a local community centre with a host of activities.
Last edited by PhilipG; 12-30-2006 at 02:42 PM.
Hello Philip:
You are correct that the inquest on James Maybrick was reopened at the Garston reading room, although Florence herself was too ill to attend the first day. I quote here from Anne E. Graham and Carol Emmas, The Last Victim: The Extraordinary Life of Florence Maybrick, the Wife of Jack the Ripper, London: Headline Books, 1999:
"On Monday 27 May [1889], sixteen days after the death of James Maybrick, the inquest was again opened, this time at the Wellington Reading Room, which had been the old police court, in Garston. . . . Dr Beamish from Walton Prison testified that she was too ill to attend. . . ." (pp. 94-95) It was rumored that she had had a miscarriage in prison -- the child of her lover, Alfred Brierley. At this session, the coroner ordered that Maybrick's remains in Anfield Cemetery be disinterred. "On the morning of 5 June Florence was taken from Walton Prison to attend the adjourned inquiry at Garston." (pp. 99) A waiter from Flatman's Hotel in London identified her in an anteroom of the reading room, rather than in the main meeting room, and then testified in open court that she had been the woman who had stayed with Brierley at the London hotel some months earlier. After the day's session, she stayed the night at Lark Lane county police station. She would remain in the same anteroom through most of the testimony on the following day as well, but was brought into open court to hear the verdict that the coroner's jury concluded that James Maybrick "was wilfully murdered by you." (p. 105)
Chris
Christopher T. George
Editor, Ripperologist
Editor, Loch Raven Review
http://christophertgeorge.blogspot.com/
Chris on Flickr and on MySpace
Hi Philip
You are right that Oscar Wilde was initially sent to Holloway Gaol but was later transferred to Wandsworth and finally to Reading Gaol; he wrote a famous poem about his time at Reading. Florie's initial incarceration was at Walton Prison but she served the majority of her 15-year time in prison at Aylesbury Prison.
All my best
Chris
Christopher T. George
Editor, Ripperologist
Editor, Loch Raven Review
http://christophertgeorge.blogspot.com/
Chris on Flickr and on MySpace
Churches....just one or two pics to post up later! Been dying for the last 8 days, think I'm over the worst of it now so have made a small return to my PC ;o)
You can always have a nose at the Image page on my www.liverpoolbells.moonfruit.com website for the mo!
St Barnabas, July 2006 (looking towards Penny Lane/Smithdown Rd junction)
Thanks, Jona76, there is a church history at St Francis Xavier's, Liverpool: Parish History by Johnny Kennedy - the image of the church on the middle of page 1 compares well with the similar view you took. The noted English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) served as a priest at St Francis Xavier's. As the church history says, "He was at Liverpool for less than two years but is, without question, St Francis Xavier’s most famous priest."
Chris
Christopher T. George
Editor, Ripperologist
Editor, Loch Raven Review
http://christophertgeorge.blogspot.com/
Chris on Flickr and on MySpace
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